


Firsts and Seconds

by rm (arem)



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 17:35:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arem/pseuds/rm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six weeks after he and Blaine break-up, Chase Madison asks him out.  Kurt says yes, because he lacks a good reason to say no.  None of it is what he expects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Firsts and Seconds

Chase Madison asks him out six weeks after he and Blaine have…. broken up? Stopped speaking at least, it’s hard to know. Kurt assumes they’ve broken up because if you’re in a long distance relationship all you’ve got is talking and if you aren't… well, he can see how it might kind of sort of be all his fault now, but Blaine should have said something and….

Six weeks. He’s a lot better now, and he doesn’t feel like he’s dying. Not all the time. It just comes over him in waves sometimes, in spells like fainting, but it’s enough usually for him to press the heels of his hands together as hard as he can and take a few deep breaths and bite his lip and get through.

And then Chase, who is sort of weirdly perfectly clear about the whole thing. Which is good, because Kurt’s not in any condition to figure out whether “Do you want to get a drink?” means Chase is making a pass at him or trying to offer his ongoing sympathy.

But Chase _is_ making a pass at him and Kurt says yes because…. Well, he doesn’t have any reason to say no, and it’s ridiculously flattering because _older_ and _really_ good suits. And he has nice hands and dark hair, which has totally always been a thing for Kurt since he got over Sam and Finn, and, let’s face it, those crushes were just pure desperation anyway.

*

At the bar he’s nervous and his legs are too long as he crosses them somewhere between awkwardly and primly under the table. He feels like Rachel, more stylish of course, but a child, clearly, in the face of Chase and all his terrible bold suits. And Chase has the audacity to laugh at him, but it’s sweet, somehow, and Kurt finds himself laughing too and smiles slyly into his own drink, a particularly weak vodka and cranberry.

They don’t not talk about Blaine, which is sort of weird. Kurt feels like it should be against the rules. But they sort of talk about everything, like being young and gay and terrified in New York and how much closer on the subway the really terrible neighborhoods used to be, but everything expands always in New York, Chase says.

He tells Kurt his real name, because seriously, _Chase Madison_? And Kurt’s touched by that and also a little frightened because New York takes you and remakes you, and he thinks of Blaine and all the things he always lets – let – the world pretend he isn’t. 

Chase leans forward and kisses him over the small table. It’s chaste, but his lips are moist and full and lingering, and it’s all up to Kurt, he knows this. And it’s not that Chase is a gentleman, he knows this too, it’s just that he’s figured out he’ll get what he want if he doesn’t lead Kurt too hard.

So, Kurt just smiles and says, “Let’s do this again.”

*

They do, after work, every third day for three weeks until Kurt winds up back at Chase’s (gorgeous) apartment. They make out, Kurt straddling his lap with shirt both half-untucked and half-unbuttoned as Chase holds his hips and sinks them into the (expensive) couch.

When Kurt groans and pulls away, legs too long and wobblier than ever, Chase smiles, escorts him downstairs with one large hand to the small of his back and puts him in a cab, handing him two twenties for the ride. 

As they go, Kurt watches his own reflection in the window. He looks wrecked and more beautiful than he has ever seen himself. The driver has an oldies station on, but Kurt hums “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” under his breath as they go over the bridge anyway, all ice and sorrow and joy.

*

The rest of Vogue.com figures out it’s more than drinks about two weeks later and Kurt is petrified when Isabelle calls him into her office. But all she says is that she’s always there if he needs to talk, and to not believe, ever, what anyone else says about Chase.

He is, she says, a profoundly decent guy.

She does not, however, say that she is happy for him.

*

Six weeks later, and Chase asks him out on a Saturday night. There’s a dinner reservation involved, and it’s the first time Kurt will have neither the excuse of exhaustion from the day nor the specter of more work the next to take him gracefully home.

This is sex if he wants it, and naked under someone else’s hands and all those glorious windows in Chase’s 32nd floor high-rise bedroom.

He says yes and kicks his foot excitedly under the table all through the meal as he falls in love with crème fraiche and grilled squash and dill. As Chase tells stories, Kurt’s eyes crinkle with mirth.

*

There’s half a second of tension in the elevator up – just the two of them – before Chase is on him and Kurt is kissing back just as fiercely, one leg coming up immediately to hook around Chase’s hip.

Kurt feels so much older than even a few months ago, but suddenly, it’s not a bad thing, because this is something he can have. Something, maybe, he’s even ready for, although when Chase grabs him with one large hand under his jaw to turn his head so that he can bite at his neck, it’s too close, for a moment, to Blaine.

He spends the rest of the elevator ride watching himself as if from the ceiling. He really is beautiful. They both are.

*

The sex is sort of amazing; Chase checks in with him constantly, but never lets up enough for Kurt to have time to get scared. And when Kurt wants to lead he lets him lead, with a sort of snide and benevolent patience that Kurt mocks him for until they’re both laughing uncontrollably.

The windows are just as fantastic as Kurt imagines. And after, coming down, they lay side-by-side, holding hands. Kurt doesn’t spend the night, saying, with understood apology and a dozen tiny kisses that almost pull him back in, that sometimes seconds are harder than firsts.

*

The next time, which is supposed to be the next weekend but they only make it as far as Thursday, Kurt _totally_ spends the night, and Friday morning is spent, hilariously, trying to accessorize Kurt out of too severe a walk of shame into the office.

It’s good, until he spends the day wanting to call Blaine and tell him about it, because he was his _friend_ , and these are landmarks as much as any other.

*

Four weeks later, after they’ve fucked and are laying on Chase’s bed facing each other now, Kurt, taking the view over his shoulder and out the windows, says, “I’m still in love with him, you know.”

Chase squeezes his hand. “I know.”

“I –“ Kurt begins, but Chase kisses him, cutting him off before he can crumple.

“Tell me what you need,” he says.

“Your help while I get him back,” Kurt says, sure it's the most presumptuous, awful, selfish thing ever, but he doesn't want to give this up.

He does crumple then, and Chase just keeps rubbing a thumb over his cheek saying, “Of course, sweetie, of course.”

*

They don’t, actually, stop fucking, which is a little confusing to Kurt until Chase says, “I don’t ask people out six weeks after they get their heart shattered because I think it’s going to be anything more than a rebound.”

“Then why do it at all?”

“Because you’re lovely, and if I’d waited all of New York would be after you, and I’d have never had a chance. And you needed a friend.”

“Is this what friends do?” Kurt asks.

Chase shrugs. “It can be.”

They go for round two.

*

Kurt emails Sam and Tina and even Miss Pillsbury. In bed, he tells Chase the whole ridiculous, crazy saga of him and Finn and listens with delight to stories of his various ones who, sometimes thankfully, got away. 

They laugh, more than Kurt has ever laughed in his life, and Kurt only tears up once, when he makes Chase promise that he will always, _always_ be his friend. 

He believes him, finally, when they have dinner with an ex- of his who turns out to be a woman, blonde and perfect. 

Chase shrugs after she kisses each of them on the mouth hello. “Sometimes, these things happen.” 

It doesn’t bother Kurt the way he thinks it should.

*

Eventually, he writes a long email to Blaine, not about what happened, but about everything that has happened since. He makes Chase read it over three times before he sends it from his tiny desk in his tiny closet at the Vogue.com offices at 8pm one night, after nearly everyone else has left.

“Come on,” Chase says. “Sex and take out. _Seriously_ , the exes always email when you’ve got somebody else’s dick in your mouth.”

“That means Blaine….”

“Well, yeah, but I mean, I thought we could assume, considering, yeah?” Chase says, laughing.

Kurt cracks up, and leans into his side. “I do love you, you know,” he says.

“I know.”

*

Blaine mails back. He’s taken aback. Kurt’s email isn’t the one he expected, but then, at this point, he says, he didn’t really expect any email at all.

Kurt reads it on the gigantic monitor in Chase’s bedroom that doubles as his television. He’s wrapped in his bathrobe, and smiles when Chase kisses the top of his head.

The emails unspool over two months, going from a few tentative paragraphs to twenty and thirty screens worth of _everything_. Blaine becomes the diary of Kurt’s misadventures in New York and Kurt the journal of Blaine's depression.

*

For an early birthday present, Chase buys Kurt a ticket home, and Kurt sobs at the kindness, scared and apologizing and not even understanding what it is they’ve been doing for months and months now.

“Why would you do this for me?” he asks.

Chase shakes his head. “Why wouldn’t I?” he asks.

*

A week before the flight home, he and Rachel have a party. They invite everyone they know, no matter how awkward, which is how Kurt winds up making small talk with Brody as he leans against Chase, his arm companionably draped over Kurt’s shoulder.

It’s the first time Chase has ever been in their loft, and that night, with cups and bottles still littering the apartment, the first time Kurt’s ever had anyone (else) in his bed.

“This is the last time, isn’t it?” Kurt asks, breathy, right in the middle of the act.

“I hope so,” Chase manages, smiling through the exertion and the glory of it.

Kurt laughs. “You’re perfect,” he says before he comes.

*

That night, also for the first time, he falls asleep in Chase’s arms. And in the morning, when he’s left, Kurt washes his sheets and his duvet alone at the laundromat three blocks down broken concrete.

On a whim, because maybe, right now, nothing can hurt him, Kurt fishes his phone out of his pocket while he watches the stripes of his bed swirl in the dryer, and texts Blaine. “I love you. Just wanted you to know.”

When Blaine texts back not with declarations or need or confusion, but just a smiley face, Kurt thinks that maybe, for the first time, they’re both really going to be okay.

He can't wait to tell Chase.


End file.
